Ponu chucked a buttered roll at Ceri. “We have a status board in the workroom below and you know your code terms. Remember, the real trick now is to work hard, work fast, but act bored. Keep rain covers over everything coming in and out. Anything new, Jonaton?”

Jonaton reiterated, “Behave like nothing unusual is going on. I’m going through the Foothold Gate within the next few days to check some things from the other side, too, if Alberdina can keep me steady enough. I have some ideas. And don’t eat or drink anything from the Foothold side until the teams mark them as safe. Not even any field cooking until the tests are done. That means you’ll be sent home-cooked meals for a while.”

There was a collective sigh of relief. “That’s—much better than I thought,” said someone Delia couldn’t see.

Ponu snorted. “This Plan has been decades in the making. If we didn’t think of everything by now, it’s because whatever is coming is something we can’t anticipate with all the information we have. All right. This phase is going to happen within the week. Are you all ready?”

“I’ll never be ready,” someone finally said, breaking the silence. “But I’ll be able.”

Ponu cackled. “That’s what I want to hear. All right, you layabouts. This is where you pay for your years of living high on the hog and never being asked to do a lick of work. Now get out of here!”

And, to Delia’s surprise—the mages cheered.

11

Kordas’s bed was comfortable, which was not a given, seeing as it was the Capital. He awoke at his usual hour—which, he suspected, was much earlier than most people living here could tolerate. He was going to leap up out of bed, get dressed, and then—

But then he remembered his new wardrobe and how impossible it was going to be to get into it unaided. With a sigh, he got out of bed and pulled the copper chain beside it.

Star entered the room immediately. “How may this one aid you, my Lord?” it asked.

“A bath and breakfast,” he said. “Or maybe the reverse order?”

“This one will serve breakfast in bed, as all the Great Ones take it,” Star said, and he thought that he registered a hint of reproach in its voice, as if he had offended it merely by suggesting that he take his meal any other way.

He sighed and got back into bed. Eating in bed had never appealed to him. Too much chance of crumbs or a spill that would require that the servants take the bedclothes apart and clean them ahead of the weekly schedule. But . . . people in the Capital didn’t have human servants anymore, now did they? And no one cared if the Dolls were inconvenienced. “What sort of breakfast is there?” he asked.